A gold medal is a wonderful thing but if you are not enough without it, you will never be enough with it.

Enhance the message with media

A Jamaican bobsled team! Now there's an oxymoron. Yet, not long ago audiences were thrilled with a movie on that very subject, entitled Cool Runnings.

I first encountered this film when I was in the middle of a sermon series entitled "Character Counts." Since all preachers and communicators are elated when they find a masterful illustration, I was ecstatic when I saw the movie. The reason for such ecstasy was that an upcoming message was focused on the character trait integrity. That is where Cool Runnings came in.

In the movie, young Dareese is consumed with becoming an Olympic runner for Jamaica just as his father had been. But he gets tripped at the qualifying trials and there is no hope of making the team. Then Dareese spies a picture of his former-Olympian father and an unknown man. He learns that the man is Erwin Brister, a former two-time gold medal Olympian in bobsledding, who had been his father's friend. Brister was disqualified from the Olympics for adding weight to the nose of his American bobsled and his two gold medals were revoked.

Dareese sets out to establish Jamaica's first-ever bobsled team. He finds Brister, now an alcoholic, and challenges him to take on the task of mobilizing and training the team. It's a humorous trail of unbelievable events, but they finally make it all the way to Calgary. On the night before their qualifying run, Brister (played by John Candy) enters Dareese's room asking if he wants to go out for dinner. Dareese, studying pictures of each turn in the bobsled run, declines, but as Brister turns to leave, Dareese says, "Hey coach, I have to ask you a question. You don't have to answer it if you don't want to."

Brister responds, "You want to know why I cheated, right? I guess that's a fair question. You see, Dareese, I had to win. I made winning my whole life, and when you've made winning your whole life, you have to win no matter what."

"But coach, you had two gold medals. You had it all!"

And then came the line that stopped me in my tracks. As coach Brister looked at Dareese contemplatively, these words flowed out of his mouth. "Dareese, a gold medal is a wonderful thing but if you are not enough without it, you will never be enough with it."

That was the core illustration of what integrity is about.

When Sunday came, I introduced integrity based on Psalm 51:6 where it tells us that, more than anything else, God desires integrity in the innermost part of our lives. Then I introduced the movie and showed the clip. It was amazing to watch the response. Children stopped squirming. Teenagers stopped talking. Adults stopped doodling with pens and pencils on the bulletin. All attention was riveted by not only hearing a message, but seeing a message delivered in the form of a medium common in their everyday lives.

And so, I discovered an effective way to occasionally drive home a point using media as my tools. Since then I have used clips from Apollo 13, Hoosiers, Thirty Something, the tragic Challenger space shuttle explosion, and a 20/20 segment on the impact of divorce on children. Without fail, each time I used media (it was definitely not on a weekly basis) the congregation riveted its attention on the screen, and thus on the message.

We never want the gospel to be overshadowed by gimmicks, but all this points to the fact that we live in a wonderful day in which multiple media can be used to draw in listeners of the gospel. The senses of hearing and seeing can be maximized through a little bit of creativity.

Christians and churches have an opportunity to tap into this creativity with The Prince of Egypt, the animated film that portrays the story of the life of Moses (see page 31). Think and pray about how you can use this wonderful creation as a basis through which to share the biblical principles of effective living. You will be surprised at how many people may just listen better if they can see the message clearly.

Bob Reccord is president and CEO, North American Mission Board, SBC.